AoM Miscellany

14 August 2013 at 5:40 pm Peter G. Klein 2 comments

| Peter Klein |

This week’s Academy of Management conference was fun and interesting, if overwhelming (over 12,000 nerds graced the Disney World resort hotels with their presence). A few post-conference links, thoughts, etc.

Twitter was a big deal. Check out the #AOM2013 hashtag for the stream. There was even an officially sponsored Tweet Up. I enjoyed playing along (as @petergklein) but am not totally clear how such a tool is best used during a conference.
I really enjoyed a Saturday morning session on “Opportunities: The State of the Debate” with me, Sharon Alvarez, Jay Barney, Dimo Dimov, Mike Wright, Devereaux Jennings, and Roy Suddaby. I was the odd man out, giving my usual shtick about how the concept of “opportunities” should be eliminated altogether — perhaps a bit cheeky given the session title, but YOLO, right? (My slides are here, though they make less sense without the accompanying patter.) Jay Barney started the session by stating that all the panelists, except me, agree that opportunities should be the unit of analysis in entrepreneurship research but that opportunities should not (necessarily) be regarded as “discovered,” but also created. By the end of the session, it seemed that all but one panelist rejected the discovery concept altogether, and most grudgingly admitted that maybe we could talk about entrepreneurs creating products and services, rather than creating “opportunities.” Anyway, a good time was had by all.
There were lots of other interesting sessions, too many to mention. Some have already been described below. The session on “Myths and Realities of Capitalism” was particularly, well, controversial.
Here’s a report on a session (that I missed) on translating research results into practice by engaging the media (via Dave Ketchen).

Entry filed under: - Klein -, Conferences, Entrepreneurship, Management Theory.

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2 Comments Add your own

1. Warren Miller, CFA, CPA | 15 August 2013 at 11:50 pm

Peter, I believe that the number of attendees barely topped 8,000, “5,000 below last year in Boston,” according to a senior AoM member from the Boston area. He seemed to be gloating a bit. FWIW, I think this conference has gotten too-too big. And Orlando in August?? I’d say the Academy of Management needs some, er, uh, m-a-n-a-g-e-m-e-n-t!
2. Peter Klein | 16 August 2013 at 6:51 am

Warren, I heard the 12K figure from more than one source but it’s possible that like Rick in Casablanca, I was misinformed.